Brian Ortega calls the UFC 'a marketing machine' and says the best are being kept out

Brian Ortega has said out loud what plenty of fighters only mutter: that the UFC is not the whole of elite MMA. On the Anatomy of a Fighter podcast he called the promotion ‘just a marketing machine’ and argued it deliberately avoids fighters who could beat its stars. His evidence is his own training partner, A.J. McKee, and the timing gives the claim teeth.

Key takeaways

Brian Ortega's claim, in his own words

A blunt line on a familiar debate

Ortega did not hedge. “The UFC is just a marketing machine,” he said. “There [are] people outside [the UFC] that would whoop us, and they know it. They are not inviting them.” Coming from a former title challenger still on the roster, that is a sharper version of an argument fans have made for years: that being the biggest promotion is not the same as holding every best fighter.

The framing matters. Ortega is not saying the UFC is weak; he is saying it is a business first, and that a business protects its product by controlling who gets a platform. Whether you agree or not, it is a rare thing for an active UFC fighter to say on the record.

The evidence he points to: A.J. McKee

A champion the UFC does not have

Ortega’s proof is personal. He trains with A.J. McKee (25-2), the PFL champion, who on September 10 faces undefeated RIZIN champion Razhabali Shaydullaev at Super RIZIN 5 in Osaka, with both the PFL and RIZIN featherweight belts on the line at once. A fighter good enough to unify two world titles, outside the UFC, is exactly the kind of name Ortega says the promotion would rather not test itself against.

The wider picture backs the point up as data, not just opinion. Elite MMA is split across the UFC, PFL, RIZIN and ONE, which means head-to-head answers between the promotions’ best rarely happen. That fragmentation is the whole reason a claim like Ortega’s cannot be simply disproven: the fights that would settle it are the ones nobody books.

Why the timing lands

McKee fighting for two belts days before Ortega speaks turns an abstract gripe into a concrete example. It is one thing to say the talent exists outside; it is another to point at a training partner about to prove it on a world stage.

The UFC is just a marketing machine. There [are] people outside that would whoop us, and they know it. They are not inviting them.
— Brian Ortega

Why it matters, and what is next for Brian Ortega

The monopoly question, and his own return

Ortega’s comments feed a real debate about whether one promotion should define who counts as the best in the world. He is not the first to raise it, but he is a credible voice: a former title challenger who has shared a gym with fighters thriving elsewhere. The honest takeaway is not that the UFC is beatable across the board, but that the sport’s fragmentation leaves the question genuinely open.

He also has his own business to handle. Ortega (16-5) returns at UFC 331 on September 19 in a rematch with Renato Moicano, a fight that will do more for his standing than any podcast quote. Win, and his words carry more weight; lose, and the marketing machine keeps moving without him.

Follow the featherweight picture with real numbers

Brian Ortega’s full record, A.J. McKee’s history and the current featherweight rankings are in the FightHub app, updated as the fights land. Download it to compare the best across every promotion, not just one.